The BJP’s politics of welfare in UP

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi interacted with a carefully selected set of beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) from Uttar Pradesh (UP) on Thursday. The PM claimed that every grain sent to UP was reaching beneficiaries, and a government statement said that 150 million residents benefited from the scheme. The PM reiterated that after providing housing, toilets, electricity and gas, the government was now working to ensure piped water to every household in a nod to the Jal Jeevan mission.

The PM’s outreach had a clear political subtext. Both the government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are focused on the 2022 UP assembly elections. And while it is widely acknowledged that the BJP-led government in the state will depend on PM Modi’s (and to a lesser degree, chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s) appeal, careful multi-caste alliances, organisational strength and religious polarisation, not enough attention is paid to the politics of welfare.

In 2017, the BJP’s success with the Ujjwala scheme of the provision of gas cylinders proved to be a major factor in mobilising the woman and subaltern vote in UP. In 2019, the discourse around the provision of houses and toilets helped the BJP project itself as a pro-poor party. And now, in light of the pandemic (and criticism about mismanagement of the second wave in UP), the BJP is hoping to drive home the message that the government was there at a time of need by providing food grains. The PM’s outreach is one element; the party organisation follows this up with reaching out to every voter who has benefited from any scheme. As the Opposition prepares to take on the BJP, it will need an effective counter to the politics of welfare.